November 7, 2008

What's Chicago's film legacy? Blues Brothers, maybe. But is there a second film that truly uses Chicago as a character?

Cincinnati's film legacy is pretty much WKRP in Cincinnati and a few scenes in Rain Man.

Hell, Lousivlle - my big city of birth, give or take - is pretty much one scene in Stripes.

Miami has a few more flicks, but it's pretty much Scarface and Miami Vice even then.

But there are a couple of American cities that live more in myth than in reality, whose image of them in our brains comes from film more than from reality. One of them is New York, and the other is Los Angeles, ye olde City of Angels.

The Kingdom was filmed in my hometown of Abu Dhabi! I saw an ad for it and squealed with delight! I never thought I'd see the day that a movie would be filmed on my tiny island home!

I haven't actually got around to WATCHING the movie yet... I don't tend to watch too many big-shiny-explosion-type movies involving helicopters and people walking away from said explosions in slow motion and not even flinching as the flames lick the sky. But I may watch it just to see said explosion taking place a few miles away from my house. :)